Pro-Trump Fox News ‘War Hero’ Lied About His Service (Including Two Purple Hearts)

According to Fox News earlier this month, a decorated veteran loves Donald Trump so much that he made the “President” a gigantic 150-lb. glass and bronze presidential seal.

“God bless John Garofalo,” one anchor said in the Fox segment. “We certainly hope maybe the president is listening.” According to Garofalo and Fox, the “decorated” veteran served as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam.

“The Vietnam War veteran served seven years as a member of the nation’s first Navy SEAL team,” Fox reporter Bryan Llenas said. “He was awarded 22 commendations, including two Purple Hearts.”

“You are a hero,” Llenas told Garofalo. “But like most heroes—“

“I don’t like to hear that,” Garofalo interrupted, adding that “heroes are the ones that didn’t come home.”

Perhaps he didn’t like hearing about his heroism, which he completely made up, because his pants were engulfed in flames at that moment (not literally, of course).

Garofalo did indeed serve in the Navy for four years, but he didn’t step foot in Vietnam, didn’t earn the awards he claims, and he certainly wasn’t a SEAL.

Multiple former SEALS contacted Fox News demanding a retraction when the story first aired, but the network failed to act so they contacted the Military Times:

The Fox segment was still up on its Facebook page as of Thursday afternoon. A Fox representative said in an email that it would run an on-air correction Sunday and corrections would be made on its website and Facebook page.

“Fox News not withdrawing that story has drove me nutty,” said Don Shipley, a retired SEAL who outs bogus military service claims and was the first to obtain official records disputing Garofalo’s story.

Shipley said he contacted Navy Times after Fox News failed to retract the bogus piece.

Shipley provided copies of Garofalo’s official military records and Navy Times confirmed the records’ authenticity with the National Personnel Records Center and Naval Special Warfare Command.

Shipley said he approached Fox about retracting the story the day after it ran.

Facebook correspondence provided by Shipley shows he messaged Llenas about inconsistencies in Garofalo’s military history and asked Fox to retract the story.

“I don’t know who has the balls in this day and age to do something like that,” he said of Garofalo’s lies in an interview.

When confronted about his lies, Garofalo admitted that he has been lying about his service for years.

“It got bigger and bigger,” Garofalo told Navy Times. “What I did I‘m ashamed of, and I didn’t mean to cause so much disgrace to the SEALs.”

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Written by John Prager

John Prager is an unfortunate Liberal soul who lives uncomfortably in the middle of a Conservative hellscape.Prager spends much of his time poking Trump's meth-addled, uneducated fans with a pointy stick and is currently writing a book of muskrat recipes (not really) as well as putting together a scrapbook of his favorite death threats. His life's aspiration is to rule the world with an iron fist, or find that sock he's been looking for.Feel free to email him at [email protected] if you have any questions or comments -- or drop him a line on Twitter or Facebook.